Hey!

We had a trip on our last day in Thailand (last Thursday)... And what a trip it was!

^{Photo courtesy of @Kaminchan.}

First we had breakfast...

Then we took the train...

^{I have no idea... But it's still funny.}

^{This is the place where we headed to.}

...hmm, no let's zoom a bit...

^{Yeah, there!}

Even whipped out the 75-300 mm zoom since the mobile photos were not sharp enough:

^75mm

^{Zoomed, at 300mm.}

So we took a bus...

^{Yes, it's a bus.}

^{Stray dogs in front of the Erawan.}

^{The entrance to the museum.}

The community bus took us to the Erawan elephants, a museum in the Samut Prakan province built and owned by a rich eccentric businessman, late Khun Lek Viriyapant, who wanted to distance himself from organized religion and create a place for preserving historical and religious artifacts without being tied to one religion or a sect.

The museum is not a temple or a church, while it incorporates religious imagery from all major religions. It is more of a philosophical study into the spiritual, culture and religion. A place where fairytale meets reality.

This elephant god Erawan, bringer of rain, the steed of the god Indra, was originally meant to have 33 heads ^{(each with seven tusks, each with seven lotus ponds, each pond with seven lotus pads, each pad with seven lotus blossoms, each blossom with seven petals, and on each petal dance seven angels)}, but because achitectural limits, it was eventually built with only three normal elephant heads.

^{Erawan picture of unknown source}

^{This elephant is also a building, a shrine of sorts.}

The rest of the heads were replaced with 33 elephants surrounding the huge building in the middle.

^{Leo exploring the park.}

Erawan museum is a place where children can live out their fairytales, and where adults can find inspiration and fuel for their imagination.

^{More elephants...}

^{Nice colour in these benches. Pity that no-one was sitting on them. I really should have asked Leo to.}

 

^{Flowers and incense were offered to the gods.
(Two photos above courtesy of @Kaminchan)}

^{More flowers}

^{Carefully setting the flower afloat}

Both Leo and I managed to do this perfectly. 😊

^{The four above photos shot by @Kaminchan.}

^{Inside the museum.}

Some details inside:

^{The ceiling represents the Heaven, that is held up by the four pillars.}

There were two staircases one could climb, the silvery, and the golden one, both leading to Heaven. We chose the silver staircase.

^{A statue with ivory in the mid-staircase.}

When we climbed up the stairs, we saw everything from a different perspective:

^{That teddybear has a seriously expensive taste for food.}

Next stop, the belly of the Elephant!

<sup>The stairway to the elephant's belly was decorated with interesting wallpaintings...

...with mermaids...

...and a three headed elephant.</sup>

In the lobby of the shrine inside the tummy of the Erawan elephant:

The shrine:

^{Photo by @Kaminchan.}

Since this post is getting a bit too long and I'm already getting a bit dizzy😵 with all the photos, I will cut it short here, and follow up in the next one.

There will be animals.

See you later guys!